Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider enables integrated use of Team Foundation Version Control with products that do not support Team Explorer integration. You can download it from here.

This version (1.2) includes:

Enable handling branched solutions in Visual Studio 2003.

Fixed issues to enable provider to support Toad for SQL Server 2.0.

Enhanced the "Choose Folder in Team Foundation Server" dialog.

Fixed bug which prevented Properties Dialog from displaying local path.

Work Items Query list in the Checkin Dialog is loaded and saved on the disk.

Friday, December 21, 2007

The Team Foundation Power Tools for VS2008 are now available here. This is the first release of the Power Tools that work with VS2008. We did not want to just deliver a warmed over version of the VS2005 Power Tools, so we included lot of new goodies in this release.

MS is trying to get a picture of the variety of ways that people have their TFS installations configured. Read Chris's blog post on what they are doing and why. There is a short survey (10 questions) with no need to provide any sensitive data. Fill it out and help them to make sure that the configurations they test map to ones actually deployed ‘in the wild’. If you own or manage multiple TFS deployments, you can fill out the survey once for each.

Like most Visual Studio-based project systems, the core tasks inside the VSDBPro project implemented as MSBuild tasks. The two core activities for Database Projects (.dbproj), “Build” and “Deploy” are implemented by two MSBuild tasks named “SqlBuildTask” and “SqlDeployTask.”

Sometimes, we also need to automate the schema and data compare processes. We can do it with new MSBuild dedicated tasks that shipped with Power Tools for Data Dude:(Currently available for VSTS 2005)

SqlDataCompareTask: allows you to compare the content of tables within two databases from the command line using MSBuild

SqlSchemaCompareTask: allows you to compare schemas between two database from the command line using MSBuild

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Building non-MSBuild projects is possible. For example you have to build VS2003, Installer, C++, Delphi projects etc. How can you do it? It's simple.

The MSBuild has a built-in task: Exec task. This task calls cmd.exe instead of directly invoking a process and runs the specified program or command with the specified arguments. You can use it in order to build non-MSBuild projects.

For example, in order to build a Visual Studio 2003 Project you should modify the MSBuild file as:

Read here for more information about the target names and the MSBuild configuration file.

First declare some variables to use them during the build. (Lines 1 - 5) . Next in the AfterCompile target, use the MSBuild Exec task to build the VS2003 project by invoking the devenv.com program (Lines 9 -10). After that make a directory (using MakeDir task) for the output (if not exists) (Lines 11 - 13). Finally copy (using the Copy task)the output files to the build binaries root (Lines 15 - 18).

Monday, December 10, 2007

When you have a View or other T-SQL Select statement that referenced to other server (even Oracle) , the VSTS for DB Professionals returns TSD4001: Could not find server SERVER NAME. Now build and deployment of the SQL Server database are blocked.

What can you do in order to solve it? the best workaround is to make sure the scripts are using 4 part names (ServerName.DatabaseName.DatabaseOwner.TableName) and you add the linked servers to the design database server. After that, you should be able to get the error to go away and you might be left with a warning about the cross-server dependencies not being able to be verified, but that shouldn't block your build and deployment of the SQL Server database.

Earlier this day I wrote about the release of ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview release . The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview is a new release that provides new functionality being added to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET in 2008. This release delivers a set of new features that target:

Supporting Test Driven Development - including a powerful and extensible MVC framework

Creating the best server for Rich Clients - including Ajax history support and Silverlight controls for ASP.NET

This release also includes the first CTP of the production version of ADO.NET Data Services (aka "Astoria") .

ADO.NET Data Services

ADO.NET Data Services provide new services that find, manipulate and deliver data over the web using simple URIs. Benefits include an easy and flexible way to access data over the web, while enabling the separation of presentation and data access code.

The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview is a preview of new functionality being added to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET. The release includes an ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, Silverlight controls for ASP.NET, ADO.NET Data Services, Entity Framework runtime, and new features for ASP.NET AJAX.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

To connect to Team Foundation Server, you must run a separate installer for Team Explorer. This installer is located in the [Drive]:\TFC\ folder on both the Team Suite 2008 media and the Team Foundation Server 2008 media.

Do you need help with keyboard shortcuts in Gmail? Just type ? (question mark) and you'll see a list of the most important keyboard shortcuts. To use it, you need to enable keyword shortcuts in the Settings before using them (the option is disabled by default).

In the last 2 weeks I have been reading the book Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 by Joseph C. Rattz, Jr. | ISBN: 1-59059-789-3 which I have had access to via the Early Access Program as a PDF ebook.

This book provides superb coverage of LINQ where it shows the reader how to leverage all the new LINQ C# 2008 language features including extension methods, lambda expressions, anonymous data types, and partial methods.

The book refers to all kinds of LINQ including LINQ to Objects, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to XML, LINQ to DataSet. The book starts with an introduction of what LINQ is (the first and second chapters, "Hello LINQ" & "C# 3.0 Language Enhancements for LINQ") and builds this more and more throughout the book and the next chapters. Even if you don't a proficient C# developer, you'll find the book useful. It provides a very good high level overview of all the sections, however goes deep into the inner works of LINQ.

The question whether to use LINQ or not is answered: the book gives you an in-depth understanding about LINQ when and where it is required.

I like the writing style to Joseph: at eye level and very coherent.

If LINQ interesting you and you would like to know it well - I highly recommend you get this book. Once I get the final version of the book, I will give it another read.

Volta is another codename project from Microsoft that aims at Web UI experience.

The Volta technology preview is a developer toolset that enables you to build multi-tier web applications by applying familiar techniques and patterns. First, design and build your application as a .NET client application, then assign the portions of the application to run on the server and the client tiers late in the development process. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and communication,erialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together.

New direct links: Previously, you could construct a direct link to a work item (http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=123). Now you can also construct direct links to more features, and the direct links no longer open the main TSWA page, making them more responsive. Keep reading to find out how to use them.

Custom work item controls: First introduced in the CTP, MS continued to refine support for custom work item controls in TSWA. To take advantage of this feature, you'll need to implement web versions of your existing custom controls. You'll find documentation for it in the SDK folder underneath the folder where you install TSWA. The following examples have been added since the CTP, in addition to the samples for checkbox, a work item picker, and a multi-value selector.

How to validate a work item on the client-side (Javascript)

How to validate a work item on the server-side

How to design a control whose field depends on the values of other fields

How to design a control that changes other field values (such as the WI state) and saves the work item

Team Build 2008 support: Also introduced in the CTP, you can view the build queue and queue new builds, which are features that are new for TFS 2008.